3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) has introduced LTE (Long Term Evolution) into the Release 8 version of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) standards. With LTE, the UMTS air interface is further optimized for packet data transmission by improving the system capacity and the spectral efficiency.
A current topic in the 3GPP standardization for a is the study on further advancements of LTE (Long Term Evolution), also referred to as LTE-Advanced. One of the key characteristics of LTE-Advanced is the support of bandwidths >20 MHz and up to 100 MHz by spectrum aggregation, i.e. the bandwidth of an LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) radio cell is divided into a number of so-called component carriers (CC), wherein the bandwidth size of each component carrier is limited to a maximum of 20 MHz.
Efficient and reliable methods for operating base stations and mobile devices in such a configuration are desirable.